It’s a doubleheader in my pantheon of heroes: Ben Franklin was born on this day in 1706 in Boston, and the poet William Stafford was born in 1914 in Hutchinson, Kansas.
I think Stafford is fascinating. He was a conscientious objector when that was an almost untenable identity. It was the day when the Greatest Generation went off to fight the evil of Nazism. It was a hard time to take a stand against violence of any kind.
Stafford’s voice is against the grain of our culture, which is probably why I think it’s indispensable. In my mind, an anthology of American literature that doesn’t include him is incomplete.
If you’re curious, I have an essay on him at hebertaylor.com.
Ben Franklin would be on my list of heroes if he’d written nothing besides the Autobiography.
My favorite part is the story of how he tried to improve himself as a young man. He made a list of the virtues and concocted a system of self-examinations to hold himself accountable. He made a grid and charted his progress daily.
The whole thing was an experiment on the psyche or self — to see whether by paying attention he could improve himself. Of course, he could not, which makes me feel mildly better about my own failures.
Anyone who reads him will think twice about the whole idea of self-improvement. I think Ben’s a godfather to a lot of people who just like to sit and think.
No comments:
Post a Comment